The San Ignacio Hospital now boasts a new ambulance. The new ambulance was debuted yesterday during the St. George’s Caye Celebrations in that municipality. The ambulance which came as a donation from the Florida Hospital Adventist health system is a major upgrade for the hospital which prior to this donation had no ambulance. Area Representative Elvin Penner also chipped in by shipping the ambulance to Belize and according to Doctor Dennis Borland and Deputy Regional Hospital Manager for the San Ignacio Hospital, Myra Pullido, the ambulance will greatly benefit the community on a whole.

DR. DENNIS BORLAND

“This ambulance is something that the San Ignacio Hospital has needed for a long time. They needed to have their own ambulance because every time you hear people talking about not having access to an ambulance; so, working with the Seventh Day Adventist Health system in Florida, we were able to get them to donate an ambulance and the hardest part was getting it to Belize; so, with the help of Minister Elvin Penner we were able to get all the paper works done and get it into Belize and hand it over to the San Ignacio Hospital.”

MYRA PULLIDO

“At this point, we are proud that the ambulance has been donated to the San Ignacio Community Hospital and as you can see it is fully outfitted. As you can see it has some materials stored in the cabinets; it has some dressing, it has a gurney, it has some equipment necessary when critical patients are being transferred to our referring centres; so, this will be an additional assistance because we already have one and this will assist us with the lot of transfers we have for the month. I am happy and on behalf of the Ministry of Health, I thank Dr. Borland and Minister Penner for this kind contribution to the community.”

MINISTER ELVIN PENNER

“Dr. Borland approached me a couple months ago where he had located an organization in the US that was willing to donate an ambulance but their willingness went as far as getting the ambulance getting, getting it equipped and shipping it to Belize and so, we had to take care of the importation duties, taxes, brokerage fees and so, the Government of Belize Cabinet was willing to give us a duty exemption on the ambulance. We realized there were a few more taxes that we still had to pay which I was able to come up with the funds to pay those fees and that pretty much brought the ambulance to Belize. It has been here for a few weeks; it was well cleaned, well equipped; unfortunately I didn’t find the time to organize the handing over ceremony before today but it couldn’t have happened at a better time than the 10th September when we are actually celebrating a holiday and some people are out here and therefore I am able to hand over the ambulance to the hospital which they very much need.”

According to Dr. Borland, an ambulance such as the one donated can cost up to fifty thousand US Dollars.